Lynne Marshall - Single Dads Collection

He sucked in a breath. ‘Hi, kids,’ he said, leaning over Freddie to put the baby carrier in the middle, and Freddie reached up and grabbed his face and planted a wet, sticky kiss on his cheek.

‘Harry!’ he said happily, and Harry straightened up and ruffled Freddie’s hair and swallowed hard.

No. They weren’t his kids. He wasn’t going to get involved. Look what had happened the last time he’d got involved in someone’s life…

‘All set?’

He clipped on his seat belt and nodded. Emily started the car and headed for town.

It was a good job he had her in tow, she thought.

He was fingering a lovely pale pure wool carpet with a thoughtful look on his face.

‘Imagine it with baby sick and play-dough on it,’ she advised sagely, and he wrinkled his nose and sighed heavily.

‘So what would you suggest?’

‘Something a little darker? Something scrubbable? There are some you can pour bleach on. Maybe a tiny pattern, just to break it up? Or a heather mix, so it’s not a flat, plain colour.’

He was glazing over, she could tell. Poor baby. For the first time in his life he was up against having to consider something other than his own taste. And he didn’t like it.

‘I want wood, really. I’d like to strip the boards, or put down an oak strip floor, perhaps. I’ve got solid walnut in my flat and it’s gorgeous. And you can wipe it clean.’

‘Hard to fall on, and it can be a bit cold. Anyway, they probably couldn’t do a really nice floor that fast.’

‘Oh, damn,’ he said, ramming his hands through his hair and grinning ruefully. ‘I tell you what, you choose. You’ve had more experience than I have. So long as it covers the floor and I can have it next Tuesday, I don’t care.’

So she chose—a soft pale coffee mix that would stand children running in and out—and then wondered what on earth she was thinking about because the only child running in and out would be Kizzy and she was less than two weeks old! He’d probably replace the carpet before she was walking.

‘Next?’

‘Furniture? I haven’t got any.’

So she took him to a place that sold beds and sofas and dining furniture, and he ordered the best compromise between what he wanted and what was available at short notice, and then right on cue Kizzy started up.

Freddie was wriggling around in the buggy, wanting to get out, and Beth was hanging on her hand and needed the loo.

‘How about lunch?’ she suggested. ‘Then we can tackle curtains and bedding—a bit more retail therapy for you.’

‘Retail therapy?’ He gave a snort. ‘Not in this lifetime—but lunch sounds good,’ he said, the air of hunted desperation easing slightly at the suggestion of reprieve, and she nearly laughed out loud.

Poor Harry. Anyone less in touch with their feminine side she had yet to meet, but she had to hand it to him. He was taking it on the chin and giving it his best shot, and she felt a strangely proprietorial sense of pride in him.

Swallowing a lump in her throat, Emily tucked her arm through his and steered him into the little café next door, sat him and Beth down, found a high chair for Freddie and took Kizzy from the sling on Harry’s chest, rocking her while the waitress heated the bottle. Then she fed her while her children played with their bendy straws and Harry sat back and closed his eyes and inhaled a double espresso with the air of a condemned man taking his last meal.

It was all she could do not to laugh.

‘Well, that was painless.’

‘Painless?’ He cracked an eye open and studied her for signs of lunacy. ‘I thought we’d never get them settled. I’m exhausted.’

‘You’ll get used to it,’ she promised. ‘I did.’

‘You’re a woman. You have hormones.’

‘Yes—and usually they’re a hazard,’ she said with a chuckle in her voice, and he opened the other eye and sat up a little.

They were in her sitting room, all three children sound asleep, and his few possessions were now installed in Dan’s bedroom, which just happened to be next to hers. Unfortunately. He could have done with being at the other end of the hall, or downstairs, or even at the end of the garden—

No. He couldn’t afford to think about the summerhouse. Not now, when he was alone with her for the first time in years, and there was soft music flowing all around them and all he wanted to do was take her in his arms and carry on where they’d left off…

‘Are you OK?’

‘Sure. Why?’

‘You’re scowling.’

He tried to iron out the muscles in his face and struggled for a smile. ‘Sorry. Thanks for today. I don’t suppose you enjoyed it any more than I did,’ he said, and then realised it was actually a lie, because in some bizarre way he had enjoyed it, all of it. And because he couldn’t lie to her, because he never had, he shook his head and smiled again, properly this time. ‘Actually, it was fun, in a strange way,’ he admitted, and she smiled back, her eyes soft with understanding.

‘You’ll get used to it, Harry. It’s not so bad after a while.’

‘Because it’s so long since you’ve done anything for yourself that you forget to miss it?’ he suggested, and she gave a wry chuckle.

‘Got it in one. And the kids are lovely. They give you back all that love in spades.’

He studied her, wondering about her love life, if it consisted solely of cuddles with her adorable children or if there was a man somewhere.

‘You’re scowling again.’

He laughed. ‘Sorry. Tell me about your garden design business. Did you do your parents’ garden? I noticed it was different—better.’

‘Do you like it? I did it years ago. It was one of my first projects. The swing seat had broken, and the garden needed a thorough overhaul. My father asked me if I wanted to do it as my first commission, when I was finishing my course. I would have done it anyway, but he insisted on paying me—said I had to live and he was sick of supporting me!’

Harry laughed with her, picturing her father, gruff and loving, always supportive, and her mother, warm and motherly and generous to a fault, like a younger version of his grandmother Grace.

‘You’re very lucky to have such loving parents,’ he said, his own voice a little gruff, and she nodded, her eyes searching his face and missing nothing, he was sure. He looked away. ‘So how’s business now?’

‘Good,’ she said. ‘I’ve done quite a bit for Nick and Georgie, both in their garden and in the development behind their house, and Nick’s got some other projects under way that I’m drawing up some ideas for, and I’ve done a few other domestic jobs around the area.’

‘Enough to live on?’

‘I manage,’ she said, but there was something in her voice that made him wonder how tight it was and how dependent she was on her parents for accommodation, or if it simply suited them all. He wondered if the rat who’d fathered her children and then legged it made any kind of contribution, and thought probably not.

‘No, he doesn’t,’ she said, and his head jerked up.

‘Did I say that out loud?’ he said guiltily, but she shook her head, her smile wry.

‘No. You didn’t have to. You were scowling again.’

‘Ah.’ He pressed his lips together, but the words came out anyway. ‘Tell me about him.’

She shrugged. ‘Nothing to tell. I met him at a party—no surprises there. He’s always been a party animal. We lived together for a year, and I became pregnant with Beth. He wanted me to get rid of her, as he put it, but I wouldn’t. I told him it was too late, and I really thought he’d come to love her, but he was pretty indifferent to her.’

‘So why didn’t you leave him?’

Her laugh was humourless and a little bitter. ‘I had nothing to live on. I didn’t think it was fair to come home to my parents. They were enjoying being free of responsibility, and they were taking all the holidays they couldn’t afford while Dan and I were at home. So I stayed with Pete, and two years later I was pregnant again.’